§ MR. BELLAIRS (Lynn Regis)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the Memorandum on Admiralty policy, issued last November on the advice of the present Sea Lords of the Admiralty, stated that the best of the unarmoured cruisers have been retained for the present, but that it is recognised that they must be allowed to die out within a few years; and whether the three "Invincibles" of the 1905–6 programme are the only armoured cruisers to be laid down under the programmes of 1905–6, 1906–7, and 1907–8 to replace the large number of cruisers numbering over eighty which, in the opinion of the Admiralty, must die out within a few years.
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. EDMUND ROBERTSON, Dundee)The reply to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative, but the inference in the second part of the Question is incorrect.